


Sneak

by sahiya



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen, Kid Neal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-14
Updated: 2013-11-14
Packaged: 2018-01-01 11:56:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1044539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal will never, ever tell Peter this, but the first thing he ever stole - the first <i>hundred</i> things, in fact - was food.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sneak

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the prompt "sneak" for a drabble challenge recently.

Neal will never, ever tell Peter this, but the first thing he ever stole - the first _hundred_ things, in fact - was food. 

Other kids had moms who made their lunches, or who sent them to school with money to buy something in the cafeteria. Neal’s mom never remembered to do either of those things. Going without a lunch was awful, and it made the teachers look at him funny, so when Neal was six, he figured out how to get what he needed.

The trick was to sneak into a cloakroom at recess, when everyone else was out playing. Apple slices from one lunch bag that also had carrot sticks, a cookie from the bag of someone who was lucky enough to have two. Twenty-five cents here, twenty-five cents there, until Neal had at least $1.50 and could afford to buy something in the cafeteria. 

He was careful. He never stole from the same person in the same week, never stole so much from one bag that it’d be noticed. There were lots of cloakrooms in his school, and he hit them all, one after another. Some teachers liked to stay in their rooms at recess and grade instead of going to the teachers’ room. That made them trickier. But everyone had to go to the bathroom sometime, and Neal was patient. 

There was one downside, though. He could never have any friends. He didn’t want anyone to ask where he’d disappeared to at recess. Sometimes that made him sad, but it would be worse if someone started asking too many questions. 

It was much better to have no friends, Neal thought, than it was to go hungry.


End file.
